TDA RESEARCH, INC. — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase I: 8.13

Description

Greenhouse growers of ornamental plants and food crops must deal with plant diseases that can damage or destroy their produce. Within these enclosed greenhouses re-occurring plant pathogen diseases can be extremely problematic, infectious microbes and algae accumulate on moist surfaces. Disease within a greenhouse can be a key limitation to profitable plant production. Once introduced, pathogen populations within a greenhouse will continue to increase as long as there are susceptible plant tissues available for infection. Clean and disinfected surfaces are needed to ensure that pathogens are not carried over from one season to the next.In this effort, TDA Research, Inc. (TDA) will develop a greenhouse disinfectant formulation that produces an established antimicrobial oxidant. The unique property of TDA's novel generation technology, compared with traditional products, is that the reactive oxidant is produced after the disinfectant solution is applied on the surface. The oxidant is generated continuously on the surface providing the advantage of continued surface disinfection where other products rapidly decay and become ineffective. Formulations utilize lower levels of active ingredients compared with traditional products and can be made to be compatible with materials and metals in a greenhouse.During this proposed Phase I effort, TDA will formulate an advanced greenhouse disinfectant formulation. The formulation will be tested for materials compatibility with common greenhouse materials. Biological efficacy will be demonstrated and plans to register the product with the Environmental Protection Agency as a greenhouse disinfectant will be initiated. A full scale greenhouse disinfection demonstration will be performed. The goal of Phase I is to acquire data demonstrating the proof of concept for use of this advanced technology as a safe, effective and environmentally friendly greenhouse disinfectant.